For a safe park, the best defense is a good offense

A small central DC playground park that has been plagued by drug dealing and other illicit activity for decades is about to undergo renovation. Once it’s done, neighbors must take ownership and make the park into a safe and welcoming neighborhood asset once again.

A sharp tension came to light at a community meeting Monday night between the desire to make Florida Avenue Park (located at the southwest corner of Florida Avenue and First Street NW) a pleasant place to let children play, take part in a game of basketball or checkers, or enjoy a sunny afternoon — and wanting to make it unwelcoming as possible to vagrants, alcoholics and drug dealers.

The park, originally designed and built in 1977, is abutted on two sides by a public housing cooperative of similar vintage. Across First Street on its east side sits a liquor store, some of whose customers frequently consume its merchandise in the park. Because of neighborhood organizations’ work with the Metropolitan Police Department, the past two months have seen a spike in arrests made in or near the park.

Solely based on its appearance, Florida Avenue Park gives off a completely different vibe from nearby Crispus Attucks Park. It is completely surrounded by a tall black wrought-iron fence, with a gate on the east end towards First Street and one on the northwest end towards Florida Avenue. The gates are locked nightly between 9:00 PM and 6:00 AM.

Inside is a basketball court (which is well used), two mostly plastic children’s’ play structures (not as well used), and a wide pathway lined with simple painted benches (often used by loiterers). While lines of mature oak trees on all three sides provide it with a shady canopy, the concrete, the fence and the overall uninspired utilitarian design make it not as welcoming a space as it should be.

The park was closed last week for renovations which aim to revive the space. Construction — funded by a $1.2 million grant from the DC Council — is slated to last through November 15. ANC 5C and the Hanover, Bloomingdale, and Bates Area Civic Associations were involved in the design process. The latter has even established a subsidiary, Friends of Florida Avenue Park, which will work with the DC Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) to maintain and plan activities for the newly-refurbished space.

DPR staff who hosted Monday’s meeting drove home the message that this kind of community activism will be key to making the park a success. But most of the concerns attendees aired dealt with how to keep certain kinds of people out, rather than how to bring more families with children, young people and seniors in.

Current plans call for the gate on the east end to remain permanently locked, to prevent liquor store patrons from easily accessing the park. But this caused some to worry about being trapped in that corner (where a play area for children ages 2-5 will go) by a threatening person with only one way out. As a solution, one attendee suggested a revolving gate that will allow people to exit, but not to enter — which does not square with the idea of eliminating aesthetic barriers to a welcoming public space.

Other attendees wanted to make sure the park would be well-lit, that metal armrests would be placed on the new benches to discourage sleeping, that surfaces wouldn’t be painted but would also be graffiti-proof, and that the perimeter fence be double-fortified to prevent forced entry after hours.

But when it came to actually making the park fun and useful for kids and adolescents and desirable for adults, DPR and the project’s landscape architect had more ideas than the attendees. Though the tall fence will remain, lowering the walls and trimming tree limbs will create clearer lines of sight, giving the park a more open feel while allowing police on Florida Avenue to observe activity within.

The play equipment will be redesigned with no enclosed spaces or large ledges — eliminating hiding spaces but also making it more challenging, and thus rewarding, to climb. Space beside the basketball court will be reserved for a community bulletin board and game tables.

But ultimately, it will be up to the Friends of Florida Avenue Park to organize concerts, clean-up days, meet and greets, and other social activities that will allow the community to reclaim the park as its own — ultimately the most effective deterrent to undesirable activity.